Staying positive through the cold season could be your best defense against getting ill,a new American study suggests.

    In an experiment that exposed healthy volunteers to a cold or flu virus,researchers found that people with a generally sunny character were less likely to fail ill.The findings,published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, build on evidence that a “positive emotional style” can help ward off the common cold and other illness.

    Researchers believe the reasons may be both objective―as in happiness improving immune function―and subjective―as in happy people being less troubled by a sore throat or runny nose.“People with a positive emotional style may have different immune responses to the virus,” explained lead study author Dr Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.“And when they do get a cold,they may interpret their illness as being less severe.”

    Cohen and his colleagues has found in a previous study that happier people seemed less likely to catch a cold, but some questions remained as to whether the emotional quality itself had the effect.

    For the new study,the researchers had 193 healthy adults complete standard measures of personality qualities, physicals health,and emotional “style”.Those who tended to be happy,energetic and easy –going were judged as having a positive emotional style,while those who were often unhappy,tense,and hostile had a negative style.

    Afterwards,the researchers gave them nose drops containing either a cold virus or a particular flu virus.Over the next six days,the volunteers reported on any aches,pains,sneezing they had,while the researchers collected objective data.Cohen and his colleagues found that happy people were less likely to develop a cold.

    What's more,when happy folks did develop a cold,their symptoms were less severe than expected based on objective measures.

    On the contrary,people with negative characters were not at increased risk of developing a cold based on objective measures,though they did tend to get down about their symptoms.

    “We find that it's really positive emotions that have the big effect,” Cohen said,“not the negative ones.”

    So can a bad-tempered person fight a cold by deciding to be happy?

Famous Modern Chinese Buildings

    Beijing International Airport

    The first place most visitors see when they arrive in China is Beijing International Airport. The airport was constructed in the 1950s. It has an indoor garden, a children's playground, and over 70 food businesses in Terminal 3 alone.

    Shanghai World Financial Center

    Completed in 2008, SWFC took over 10 years to complete due to financial shortages and construction delays. Since its completion, it has won countless architectural awards.

    Tourists are welcome at SWFC's viewing platform, which at 474 meters above ground is the world's highest closed viewing platform.

The Water Cube

    It was constructed for use during the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. Now visitors can express surprise at the architecture of the building. They can enjoy the indoor atmosphere as well.

    Among the offerings of the Water Cube are a restaurant and bar, a shopping area, and Water World, a family water park

The Bird's Nest, Beijing

    It was designed mainly for the 2008 Summer Olympics. It can hold up to 80,000 people and has been used for a winter theme park. Nowadays, its main income is as a tourist attraction. It draws more than 20,000 tourists every day.

National Center for the Performing Arts

    It was completed in 2007. The building is surrounded by a man-made lake, requiring guests to enter via an underground hallway. It is home to an Opera Hall, Music Hall, and Theater.

    As a result of pollution, Lake Erie, on the borders of the USA and Canada, is now without any living things.

    Pollution in water is not simply a matter of “poisons” killing large numbers of fish overnight, Very often the effects of pollution are not noticed for many months or years because the first organisms（生物体）to be affected are either plants or plankton. But these organisms are the food of fish and birds and other creatures. When this food disappears, the fish and birds die too. In this way a whole food chain can be wiped out, and it's not until dead fish and water birds are seen at the river's edge or on the seashore that people realize what is happening.

    Where do the substances which pollute the water come from? There are two main sources of sewage（污水）and industrial waste . As more detergent（洗涤剂）is used in the home, so more of it is finally put into our rivers, lakes and seas . Detergents harm water birds, dissolving the natural substances which keep their feathers water - proof. Sewage itself, if not properly treated, makes the water dirty and prevents all forms of life in rivers and the sea from receiving the oxygen they need. Industrial waste is even more harmful as there are many highly poisonous things in it, such as copper and lead（铅）.

    So, if we want to stop this pollution, the answer is simple: sewage and industrial waste must be made clear before flowing into the water. It may already be too late to save some rivers and lakes, but others can still be saved if the correct action is taken at once.

    Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave £ 12,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children's playground.

    As a result of his kindness, many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson said that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be a hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky and drank some each day. "I have an injection (注射) in my neck each evening." He told the newspaperman, thinking of evening glass of whisky.

    The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and has a daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the secret of his daily injection.

    Studying the DNA of 300 mice has flagged up genes which have been linked to hereditary (遗传的) sight loss for the first time. Researchers say because mice's genes are so similar to humans', their findings could lead to the treatment of more genetic diseases.

    Scientists at the University of California, Davis studied information from a data bank of mice's genetic material. They found 347 genes linked to eye problems, with just 86 of them having been studied in the past.

    Only around 50 to 75 percent of hereditary eye diseases in human can be explained with present science. The researchers believe these hundreds of new genes found in mice could be a key to explaining-and therefore being able to treat the other 25-50 percent.

    "This is extremely valuable for people with hereditary eye disease," said researcher Professor Ala Moshiri. "All researchers are going to start using these data. In the past, we knew the problem was there but we didn't know where to look. Now eye centers can call back patients and screen them for these new genes. We expected that more and more of these genetic diseases will be treatable." Also, the fact is that more than 60 percent of eye problems at birth are ones resulting from the baby's parents!

    Thanks to data from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC), which is trying to work out what every single gene in a mouse is responsible for, with the aim of translating it to humans, scientists are moving closer to figuring out all genetic causes of blindness. To do this, scientists separate a single gene from other ones at a time and then observe what effect it has on the mouse for a long time. This has so far been done more than 7,000 times and has achieved great success. Researchers are now working alongside eye care centers in Texas and Iowa in order to compare the mice's genes to those of patients.

    Finding fruits and vegetables at your typical grocery store that have been grown without the extensive use of pesticides can be difficult. Fortunately, The Environmental Working Group(EWG) has done all of the work for you in finding healthy and pesticide－free produce.

    EWG has created the 2018 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which helps shoppers to find uncontaminated produce. Many consumers do not realize that pesticide residues(残留) are very common on conventionally grown produce products, even after they have been washed or peeled. Because of this, EWG has created their series of guides to lead consumers to safer food choices.

    In order to create these guides, EWG analyzed the USDA pesticides tests, which found a total of 230 different pesticides and pesticides breakdown products on thousands of produce samples. Analyzing this information, EWG observed the big differences of the amount of pesticides found from product to product.

    The guide's two main components are two compiled lists highlighting the cleanest and dirtiest produce concerning pesticides. These two lists, Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen, show consumers how certain foods continue to carry trace amounts of pesticides with them all the way to the grocery store shelves, while others make it to your kitchen virtually pesticide－free.

    Some of the highlights from their analyses included the following findings：

    More than one－third of strawberry samples analyzed in 2016 contained 10 or more pesticide residues and breakdown products.

    Spinach(菠菜) samples had, on average, almost twice as much pesticide residue by weight compared to any other crop.

    No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen tested positive for more than four pesticides.

    “With EWG's guide, consumers can fill their fridges and fruit bowls with plenty of healthy conventional and organic produce that isn't contaminated with multiple pesticide residue," said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst in EWG.

    Only 25 years ago, the National Academy of Sciences raised concerns about exposure to poisonous pesticides in our food, yet consumers still consume a mixture of pesticides every day in America.